Parks & Rec Minutes
August 1, 2022 @ 7pm
August 1, 2022 @ 7pm
- Call to Order
- Roll Call – Present: Brett Klukan, Helen Eckel-Wiener, Anne Duzan, Jane Kennedy, Liz Malone, Isabel Clark and Abbey Swan. Guest: Tom Parr
- Public Comment – Tom asked about National Night Out and Abbey responded that due to staffing and covid, it hasn’t been held the past few years. It’s expected to resume in 2023.
- Approved minutes from June 6, 2022
- Old business
- Summer Series
- Recap June 17 (Sing 2) – great turnout, technical difficulties. Abbey figured out the problem after the fact so we’ll be good for next year. We liked the location next to the pavilion rather than across the stream. Need to figure out the electric load if we use the popcorn machine and the screen on the same plug. We ended up with the popcorn in the other pavilion, which was good too. We should hang hooks to hang the string lights ahead of next years’ events.
- Reschedule July 1 (Hook) – We weren’t able to find a date to reschedule our rained out movie. We decided to save it for next year (maybe May – Peter Pan Day).
- Planning August 5 (Chico’s Vibe + fireworks) – the event is rain or shine. Abbey will provide an update on Wednesday regarding the weather. Not much set up for us to do – everyone pretty much takes care of themselves.
- Community Day Update
- Parks and Rec Table – we’re at 35-40 vendors for Community Day. Parks and rec decided to have a table where we’ll talk about our ongoing projects and make seed balls for people to take home. Abbey will get the materials. Abbey needs to look into selling pavers for the dog park fundraising. We’ll set up a schedule for staffing the table. (we also had a brief discussion about the dog park plants – some of them died, but others did well. We may have to replace plants next year. Anne will make a poster asking people to water the plants and describing what they are)
- Summer Series
- New Business
- Thornridge Playground – Abbey reported that the small playground that the township owns in the Thornridge neighborhood is in bad shape and is just really old. The Director of life safety says it need to be torn down. We do not have plans to replace it right now. Some residents have expressed concern, but the playground hasn’t ever been accessible to the public, so there isn’t any existing budget for replacement. We could consider adding a playground once the meadow park is completed. We also talked about nature-related items for kids – a learning garden etc.
- We need to propose a Parks and Rec budget to the Board in October. We’ll have that discussion via email. Abbey will send the current budget and expenditures for the group to have input on.
- PULL stations have been a hit! We’ve gotten lot of volunteers and Tom actually constructed a 3rd box for us. We need to find a place to put it!
- Fall event dates:
- Meadow Planting: October 22 (RD Oct 23)
- Halloween Party: October 29 (RD Oct 30)
- Tree Lighting: December 3rd (RD Dec 4th)
- Abbey ordered a new sand digger for the park, plus a few replacement swings. The walking bridge in the park has been ordered – it will be a concrete slab with metal railings. It should last forever. We’ve also gotten an electrician to update the lights in the Municipal Park bathrooms and make some other improvements.
- Adjournment
